ABSTRACT
Let’s return to attention. As has been noted, attention is the basis of our experience of the world. It is not a “function” alongside other functions, but the foundation for having a world at all in which those “functions” can be exercised. And although it is true that what it is we are attending to determines the type of attention we pay to it, it is also importantly true that the type of attention we pay determines what it is we see. The way reality comes into being for us is like that famous picture by M C Escher of hands that draw hands:
So what has the exponential growth in brain research over recent years actually revealed about hemisphere differences? And what sort of a world does each create for us? Here I am going to have to summarise in almost telegraphically compressed form what we know. All I can say is that the evidence is, in my view, both extensive and convincing, and those who are interested will find the relevant research given in detail in The Master and his Emissary.
